Secretary of State's Rules of Engagement in Northern Ireland

Pat Finucane Centre | 24 October 2017

A memo from a private secretary to the Secretary of State in 1975 suggesting that the SoS would like to see '... some form of dispensation permitting the Forces to open fire in an emergency without fear of subsequent legal action.' The author speculates that compensation claims by the relatives of t...

Families Challenge MoD and Prime Minister in London

Pat Finucane Centre | 26 October 2017

In November 2016 the families of Christopher Quinn and Kevin Heatley along with the Pat Finucane Centre utilised Advans in London to highlight the murders of their relatives and the appalling treatment they endured after the killings, in response to Theresa May's comments on those pushing for human...

Security 'secrecy' still spooking nationalists

Belfast Telegraph | 12 April 2011

The past week was a watershed in republican attitudes to the police. But the ongoing presence of MI5 is the stumbling block to a total acceptance, argues Brian Rowan. A lot changed last week, but there is more that needs to change. You find the task and the challenge in the words of Nuala Kerr as sh...

For God and Ulster: An Alternative Guide to the Loyal Orders

PFC | 11 April 1998

This alternative guide to the Loyal Orders is an attempt to fill a gap, a gap in information about semi-secret organisations which have played a major role in the history of this island and a gap in understanding as to why a significant number of people have a problem with those organisations. Few o...

Arrest Policy for Protestants

Arrest Policy for Protestants - Memo from MoD

At point 1 (apologies for the quality of the copy) reference is made to a meeting at Stormont Castle on November 29 1972 where the GOC (General Officer Commanding - the British army) was asked to "draft an arrest policy covering the UVF and other extreme loyalist elements, though not the UDA per se."

Arrest policy for protestants - loose minute December 1972

1974 Memo

Note of a meeting in the Northern Ireland Office on 13 November 1974 including officials from various ministries, the Attorney General's Office and the Treasury Solicitor's Office. The 'Counsel' referred to in the document is almost certainly the legal counsel representing the British Government at the European court case taken by the Irish Government in respect of multiple violations of...

Memo of meeting between Attorney General and British Army

Two pages of a memo (AG 1971 p2 and AG 1971 p3) concerning the visit of a J.M. Parkin, Head of C2 at HQNI (British Army HQ) in the North to the then Attorney General Basil Kelly, a Unionist MP. In reference to any potential prosecutions of soldiers for the murder of civilians Parkin notes,

Diary entry from Attorney General

A diary of the meeting between J.M Parkin, Head of C2 and HQNI and Attorney General Basil Kelly and additional confirmation that the Attorney General fully understood that HQNI was telling him that he should not prosecute soldiers. In effect the military tail was wagging the legal dog. This meeting took place less than two months before Bloody Sunday

Strasbourg-Brief for Attorney General

Brief for the British Attorney General (AG) in preparation for the 'Irish state case' (the Hooded Men) from September 1972 from DS10 (the Defence Secretariat at the MoD in London). Of interest is the disinformation provided to the AG, the most senior law officer in Britain, by the Ministry of Defence. At para 4 it is claimed that Ballykelly only...